A meeting was held in Islamabad on today, between
the officials of Auditor General of Pakistan and the Institute of Cost
& Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMAP) to discuss the areas
of collaboration between the two organizations. A working Group was
formed in the meeting which will finalise the areas of collaboration
including preparation of Terms of Reference (TOR) for conducting cost
audit by the practicing Cost and Management Accountants in the public
sector organizations.

The Auditor General of Pakistan appreciated the
proposal of ICMAP for subjecting the public sector organizations to
Cost Audit with the objective of reducing cost, improving effeciencies
and curtailing wastages, so as to make these organizations financially
viable.

Intel Pakistan announced the launch in Pakistan of
the Intel® Teach to the Future program. Since 2000, the program has
helped more than 388,000 teachers worldwide to integrate technology
more effectively into their classrooms to enhance student learning.
The goal is to provide free training to 500,000 teachers in 24
countries. The program is presented with support from Microsoft
Corporation.

Christian Morales, Vice President and General
Manager, Intel Asia Pacific, and Dr. Ata-ur-Rehman, Federal Minister,
Ministry of Science and Technology, signed a Memorandum of
Understanding for the program and gave a keynote address to special
guests from the education field during the program's formal launch in
Islamabad.

The program is designed to help teachers and
students become well versed in Internet and computer technology by
making education entertaining and effective.

UBE CONDUCTS TREASURY AUDIT
TRAINING WORKSHOP

United Bank Limited held a specialized six days
training workshop on the Audit of Treasury Functions, the purpose of
which was to upgrade the treasury auditing skills of the people
working in this important division of the bank. Auditors from all over
the country participated in the workshop.

"Treasury operations are a vitally important
components of contemporary banking that also involve the factors of
risk", said M. Ejazuddin, Audit Chief UBL, and the brain behind
the training. "Given the risk factor, audit of the treasury
functions is imperative however, since treasury is a relatively new
concept in Pakistan, the auditors are not very adept at this
technique, hence the need to upgrade the treasury auditing
skills."

The program developer and treasury auditing expert
Abbas Merchant, who has an in-depth experience in this field with
various national and foreign banks said that the need for training in
this area cannot be over emphasized. The banks need to be extra
vigilant in this field because of the inherent risks involved. He said
that after the successful completion of his course, he expects the
participants to set new trends in effective control of the treasury
operations of the bank.

The training program on Audit of Treasury Functions
is the first of its kind in Pakistan. It is an important milestone in
training activities and is expected to have a positive impact on
auditing skills.

Earlier, Jauhar Naqvi, Head of Training, UBL
welcomed the participants and thanked M. Ejazuddin, Audit Chief for
his continuous support for training and development of the staff.

At the end of the session Abdul Ghafoor Chief HRD
who was also the chief guest, distributed the certificates to the
participants and expressed hope that the training would prove to be
beneficial for both the trainees as well as the bank.

INAUGRATION OF KFC SIALKOT
BRANCH

Another golden day in the history of KFC Pakistan.
KFC launched its latest restaurant in Sialkot. A city famous for great
poets and sports goods has now added to its list the largest KFC
outlet in Asia. The inauguration ceremony was honoured by Maj. Gen.
Mohammed Sabir (GOC 15 Div) as the chief guest. The memorable occasion
was witnessed by offcers from the armed forces, District Nazim, Tehsil
Nazim and Nazimeen, officials from the district management, the Cantt,
Board, President and members of the Chamber of Commerce and a large
crowd of prominent businessmen and the citizens of Sialkot. This free
standing spacious restaurant with a drive-thru facility, open-air
theatre, a special party lounge, a lavish green park, state of the art
play area and a great view describes the grandeur of this outlet.
Ample parking, breath-taking ambiance, superb hospitality and
un-matched security arrangements make this restaurant safe and fun for
the Sialkotees.

Colonel Sander's great tasting chicken meals have
been heartily welcomed by the people of Sialkot who have been coming
for more since the opening. KFC Sialkot is a great example of a
well-knit team effort from the KFC family. KFC's quest continues to
enter new cities after making its presence in Sialkot being the 6th.
Leaders in the fast food industry, KFC has already commissioned work
on two new cities of Pakistan. The company is on the road to grow
along with Pakistan and is totally committed to play its role in the
development of this nation and its economy.

MCB - SSGC SIGNED AN
AGRREEMENT FOR A NEW SERVICE TO PAY UTILITY BILLS THROUGH MCB ATMS.

Muslim Commercial Bank and Sui Southern Gas Company
signed a Memorandum of understanding (MOU), creating a mutually
beneficial alliance for a new service which will enable customers of
both the organizations to use MCB ATM's Network in near future to pay
their Sui Gas Utility Bills.

The need to train oil industry personnel in the
latest international procedures, techniques and standards cannot be
overemphasized, said Mr Tariq Kirmani, Managing Director, Pakistan
State Oil.

He was speaking as the chief guest at the
certificate award ceremony of the four-day training course on
"Measurement Standards of Petroleum Products and Liquefied Gases
and Safety Codes of Practice." The course was organized by
Redwood Division of Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) Pakistan.

Mr. Brad Cerny, fellow member of the Institute of
Petroleum and director of Redwood International Training Services, UK,
conducted the training course.

The training covered the latest international
procedures, techniques and standards involving measurement of
petroleum products and liquefied gases, terminal and jetty operations
in accordance with the International Safety Guide for Oil Terminal and
Tankers (ISGOTT) and Health & Safety at Work and Emergency
Planning.

SGS Redwood derives its name from Sir Boverton
Redwood, a l9th century petroleum technologist who pioneered petroleum
inspection and measurement techniques, and whose business was
subsequently integrated into the SGS group.

Established in Pakistan in 1952, SGS Pakistan (Pvt)
Ltd comprises a dynamic team of over 140 specialists supported by
state-of-the-art testing laboratories and advanced computer
technology.

SEMINAR ON MULTIMEDIA HELD AT
MEHRAN UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY, JAMSHORO

A one-day Seminar on Multimedia Its Applications
and Career Prospects was organized at the Auditorium of the Mehran
University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) Jamshoro on Wednesday.

The Seminar was organised by the Directorate of
Industrial Liaison, MUET, in collaboration with the Arena Multimedia
World Wide.

In his welcome speech Dr. Dost Ali Khuwaja, Dean,
Architecture and City and Regional Planning and Chief Guest of the
occasion, highlighted the importance of Multimedia applications.

Behroz Jalil, Country Manager Arena Multimedia,
Pakistan said that Multimedla applications were being utilized in web
animation, games development, post production, graphics, virtual
reality etc and their worth was in billions of dollars.

The web industry will be worth $60 billion by the
year 2007 and will have ten million jobs available worldwide.

The animation industry has 30 per cent growth per
year and the industry is worth $30 billion at present which will reach
$70 billion by the year 2005.

The games development industry is worth $6 billion,
which will reach $15 billion by the year 2004.

Post-production is an industry worth $35 billion
while there is a lot of growth happening world-wide in the field of
graphics and virtual reality.

Irfan Qureshi, chief executive of the Arena
Multimedia, Hyderabad said that Pakistani youth had a lot of potential
and added that there was a need to have digital and online libraries
for the growth of IT education in Pakistan.

The Seminar was attended by more than 600 students
and faculty members.

"CASH PLUS" MCB
CASH MANAGEMENT PRODUCT

In line with the needs and requirements of its
Corporate Customers, Muslim Commereial Bank Limited has signed another
agreement with Agfa Geveart Pakistan Ltd. on May 20, 2002, in respect
of its produet namely CASHplus, facilitating collection of funds
through its branch network across the country.

The CASHplus product launched recently has further
strenghen the bank's corporate relationship and ensure that MCB's
network of branches are utilized to deliver cost effective and
efficient collection of funds with accurate and timely MIS.

The Honorable High Court of Sindh has sanctioned
the merger of Security Stock Fund Limited (SSF) with BSJS Balanced
Fund Limited (BBF).

The management of SSF, a closed end mutual fund
with a paid up capital of Rupees one hundred million was acquired by
ABAMCO Limited, investment advisor of BBF on October 18, 2001 . On
merger the shareholders of SSF will be entitled to nine shares of BBF
for every ten shares of SSF. In accordance with the listing regulation
of stock exchanges, the book closure date for shareholders of SSF will
be shortly announced, after which date BBF will exchange its shares
with the shares of SSF.

BBF, a closed-end mutual fund was offered to public
on January 14, 1996 with a paid capital of Rupees one hundred fifty
million. Confidence Mutual Fund whose management was acquired by
ABAMCO on September 13, 2000 was merged with BBF and the paid up
capital of BBF was raised to Rupees two hundred and fifty million.
With the merger with SSF, the paid up capital of BBF will be raised to
Rupees three hundred forty million. ABAMCO will be the investment
adviser of the merged company.

BBF has emerged, as the second biggest closed end
mutual fund in the private sector in terms of the paid-up capital and
biggest in terms of the value of net assets. It will rank fifth in
terms of paid-up capital in the entire closed-end sector and second
after ICP SEMF in terms of the value of net assets. BBF has been
assigned AA (f) rating by PACRA. The merger will bring economy of
scale and the shareholders can hope to get better returns from BBF.

ABAMCO, the Investment Adviser of BBF is also
managing Unit Trust of Pakistan an open-ended mutual fund, which has
been assigned AA (f) rating by PACRA. ABAMCO has recently announced
its plan for launching of an open-ended Income Fund.